


Plausible Deniability

by 2cm



Category: Free!
Genre: Globetrotters, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27595013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2cm/pseuds/2cm
Summary: Why had Haruka even brought it along if he wasn't going todoanything with it?(Haruka, Rin, and a sketchbook. Travelling to Sydney.)
Relationships: Matsuoka Rin/Nanase Haruka
Comments: 14
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

At the start of your spur-of-the-moment trek to Sydney, you'd only ever catch mere glimpses of it: a worn looking corner sticking out of his travel bag as you prompted him to fetch his passport for check-in at Tottori Aiport, its spine trapped snugly between his thigh and a neatly folded airline blanket while the two of you waited for take-off, restless fingers playing with its frayed ribbon-style bookmark as the plane began ascending...

Never anything more than that, because Haruka had seemed dead set on waiting for you to fall asleep before taking it out of its hiding place and opening it up (which you obviously weren't going to do on such a short domestic flight, so why hadn't he simply stored it away in the overhead compartment along with your bags?).

You would've been lying if you had said your curiosity hadn't been piqued, but, at first, you had still been able to shrug it off with relative ease. You had more pressing matters to deal with, after all. Such as making sure you didn't lose sight of him while making your way through crowded airport terminal after crowded airport terminal (without being _too_ obvious about it); dodging incoming luggage trolleys and avoiding collisions with harried looking tourists all the while.

Much to your surprise, though, Haruka had slowly lost his resolve to hide his mysterious travel pastime over the course of your — awfully quiet and stilted — journey to Tokyo's Narita Airport. After touch-down in Haneda, he had no longer insisted on keeping the book completely out of sight; instead he had started keeping it tucked away underneath his left arm, and had even taken to using it as a makeshift folder to store his passport in while you made your way to the baggage carousels.

And _that_ , of course, is when your eyes had really started honing in on it (without so much as a by your leave), and you had become utterly unable to tear them away from the navy-coloured hardback every time it had made an appearance ever since. What had started out as a passing fancy at first, a mere novelty that had managed to capture your attention only fleetingly due to the circumstances (read: boredom), had rapidly turned into a full-fledged craving to find out _more_.

"Just make sure you don't actually _lose_ your passport like that, you idiot," You had muttered when you had eventually become aware of your uncontrollable fascination with the object your friend was guarding so closely, steadfastly ignoring the mulish expression on said friend's face. "And quit dragging your feet already, will you?"

"I'm _not_."

Luckily, Haruka had quickly placed it away in his seat pocket as soon as the both of you finished boarding the shuttle bus between Haneda's domestic terminal and Narita's international T2 — meaning you got an approximately 82-minutes-long respite from your burning curiosity.

Why had he even brought it along if he wasn't going to _do_ anything with it?

Was your presence really that much of a detriment for him?

Did he actually think you'd try to tease him about it?

Or were you merely overthinking it...? Perhaps he was just feeling self-conscious in public.

The grating part was that you were absolutely certain you'd have been able to _let it go_ , if only you had been entirely unaware of the book's plausible contents. Instead, your traitorous mind had — rather embarrassingly quickly, to be honest — helpfully recalled an echo of Nagisa's cheerful voice proudly announcing that _'our Haru-chan'_ not only possessed an innate talent for swimming and cooking mackerel based dishes, no, he _also_ , happened to be extremely good at arts; he had apparently even created promotional posters for the Iwatobi High School swim club at some point.

It wasn't like you had never seen his drawing skills in action before, though. You'd actually discovered more than one of his surprisingly water-free talents when you had briefly been classmates, but that had been _years_ ago... and you'd never once suspected he had actually enjoyed any of them enough to bother doing anything with them in his spare time.

In any case, once you had put all of that knowledge together there really was no way around it: Haruka hadn't brought just any random notebook along, _no_ , it was a _sketchbook_ _—_ and considering how threadbare it looked, not to mention the position of the tattered red ribbon (marking a spot only a couple of pages away from the back flap of the book), well... it undoubtedly contained a whole lot of insight into the inner workings of a frustratingly tight-lipped Nanase Haruka.

Insight that would probably come in very useful to you on this soul-searching trip you had dragged him into.

Either way, by the time you had settled into your seats on the overnight Qantas flight to Sydney, he had guardedly retrieved a compact little pencil case from the pocket of his hoodie and angled his body away from you in such a way that would've made it impossible for you to sneak a peek without obviously leaning over his shoulder (and while you probably could've gotten away with claiming you had only wanted to peer out of the window as an excuse to get a quick look at the contents of the page he was currently working on, you definitely didn't want to risk agitating an already despondent Haruka at the start of your nearly ten hour long flight across the Pacific Ocean).

Waiting it out _had_ paid off, however, because he had eventually stopped actively trying to hide the pages of his sketchbook from your openly inquisitive gaze. Once you had put on the headphones provided by the airline company and selected a movie to watch on the small screen built into the back of the seat in front of the passenger in front of you, Haruka's wary posture had slowly relaxed. He had then pulled one heel up on top of the edge of his seat, knee bent and propped up against the inside of the cabin, and had quietly lost himself in whatever he had decided to sketch.

And you had vowed to yourself that you'd keep your eyes trained on your screen at all costs, because it had been obvious — even to you — that you were being _tested_.

"Haru? Just tap my shoulder if you want to get up and use the bathroom, OK? I'm going to turn the volume up now."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I was researching flight routes for the 1st chapter I may have confused Kansai International Airport with Haneda Airport! I did find out that there weren't any direct flights from Narita to Sydney yet when Haruka and Rin would've made the trip, though. So I'll just leave it as it is, because a longer journey works in my favour for this fic. I'm sorry for any confusion this may have caused! (It's hard to look up flight information right now, since there aren't many flights coming from and going to Japan...)

Only an hour or so into your movie, Haruka must have decided you passed had the test, because he had wordlessly placed his book down on the floor — right in between his shoes, like he seriously thought it'd be a good idea to use them as _a pair of bookends_ — and had proceeded to curl up in his seat for a nap.

Considering the fact that you hadn't exactly given him much of a reason to believe you wouldn't simply pull the same tricks you had employed the very last time you'd wanted to get a look at one of his most treasured books, this new development had instilled you with a distinct need to live up to his expectations and respect his privacy.

You hadn't even tried to sneak a peek at it during the rest of your flight _._ In fact, you hadn't so much as _looked_ in its direction. And you had even managed to keep it up long after you had landed in Sydney.

It _was_ difficult, though. Especially when Haruka had retreated to Russel and Lori's backyard to sketch _—_ and subsequently bond with _—_ an unsurprisingly ecstatic Winnie (who had seemed just about as enamoured with him as you had undeniably been back when you had first arrived here all those years ago). Or when he had left his sketchbook out on the bedside table while he took a quick shower back at the hotel.

But you had trusted your efforts would eventually pay off.

And they _had_.

Because, still fresh from your own shower, you had suddenly been presented with one of the pages of Haruka's sketchbook: an incredibly detailed drawing of yourself holding Winnie close to your chest, complete with an embarrassingly large grin on your face _—_ one that you'd definitely never seen in the mirror before _—_ as you lovingly tugged at one of her ears, neatly ripped out with minimal damage to the paper and hesitantly placed on your towel covered lap.

"This is _—_ " You had somehow managed to choke out, rather hoarsely, right around the sudden lump in your throat. " — _amazing_ , Haru."

"It's you and Winnie." He had told you, then, as if he were referring to a simple pair of stick figures.

" _I can see that!_ " You had replied, very empathically, before remembering your manners and stammering out: "Are you absolutely sure I can have this...?"

Ever since then, Haruka had gotten into the habit of showing you some of his work as soon as he was satisfied with it. And you, of course, eagerly took everything in: a rough outline of the Archibald fountain at Hyde Park (most likely based on one of the hotel's pamphlets, because the two of you hadn't really spent that much time near it at all); an almost perfect copy of your hotel room key, a beautiful full-coloured drawing of the white flowers in the vase on top of the decorative fireplace in your shared room... even a breathtakingly realistic sketch of the moment you had dived off starting block #7 at the Aquatic Centre; and, perhaps not so surprisingly, another sketch of Winnie wagging her tail (tucked into the empty space underneath an unidentified bird gliding through the sky; with its wings spread as wide as they could possibly go).

You had known he wasn't showing you _all_ of the things he'd been working on over the course of your so-called holiday. But that was all right, wasn't it? Getting to see a page here and there was more than satisfactory enough.

You couldn't help but feel like you had grown closer than you ever had before. You were finally able to openly discuss your plans for the future, for starters. _Without_ Haruka dodging the conversation or looking away with an irritated frown on his face. And it'd probably sound embarrassingly sappy, but you hadn't been able to shake the feeling that there was a new kind of intimacy slowly developing between the two of you now; one that had probably sprung into existence a couple of months ago, when you'd woken up in his bedroom at some ungodly time in the morning, face still half-buried into a spare pillow (and your toes sticking out of the end of the comforter), to find his hand dangling down from the bed.

Something had — slowly but surely — begun to dawn on you then, as you lay there on top of the futon on Haruka's floor, staring numbly at the fingers grazing the corner of your pillow. You had already known what it was, back then, but you hadn't been ready to own up to it just yet.

You hadn't been sure you'd _ever_ be able to own up to it, to be honest. Not even to yourself.

But that something had become practically impossible to ignore over the course of your stay in Sydney. Each time you had caught a glimpse of Haruka's faintly smiling face, it had lodged itself somewhere near the centre of your ribcage a little more firmly. A little more noticeably. A little more _inescapably_.

Stray thoughts of that smile — of those _lips_ — were starting to invade your mind more and more often, as well. Like a dam had been broken as soon as he had confided his wish to pursue a career in professional swimming to you; it had started like a slow trickle, but you would soon be needing a life vest to save yourself from drowning in the flood of your longing for him.

Because wanting him almost felt like it was no longer off-limits now. Not when he finally seemed to be at peace once more.

Partially because of _you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be really busy in December, so I might not be able to update this before 2021. Sorry for the wait! I hope you like this small update.


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